JPS61150901A - Portable vessel for dangerous waste - Google Patents

Abstract

Portable hazardous waste containers 10 can be used both for storage and transportation. Waste from an unsatisfactory container, an open pit, or a process stream can be placed in the container 10, which can then be shipped, if necessary, to a disposal site and then buried in a landfill. By using proper materials and container dimensions, a single container 10 can satisfy the separate regulatory requirements for waste storage and transportation.The container 10 can suitably include a base 12, a plurality of walls 14, and a removable lid 16. The base 12 can be sloped to cause liquids to flow by gravity to the lowest point in the container 10. The walls 14 can comprise non-coplanar upper and lower segments 28 and 30 to facilitate sealing and stacking.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to the handling and disposal of hazardous wastes, and more particularly to containers for the transportation and storage of such wastes.

(Prior art and its problems) Hazardous waste is a substance that is usually produced as an undesirable by-product in an industrial process, and the waste is toxic,
They exhibit undesirable properties such as carcinogenicity, non-degradability, and biomacromorphism, making them actual or potential hazards to the health of humans or other living organisms. Under current technology, many useful substances cannot be manufactured without also producing some kind of hazardous waste. Since it is currently not possible to recycle all waste, safe means of disposal must be found.

As the risks of air and water pollution are known to be increasing, methods of disposing of waste into the atmosphere (e.g. by combustion) or into rivers or the sea are undesirable in many circumstances. This has come to be recognized. In the United States and in a number of other countries, laws or regulations severely restrict such processing methods.

As the disposal of waste into the air or water decreases,
Naturally, land processing has increased in quantity. One method of land-based disposal is to dig a hole in the land and simply drop the waste into it. Another option is to bury waste in a landfill.

In many land-based treatment methods, prevention of groundwater contamination by waste is a major concern. In landfills, this problem is often addressed by digging a fill hole in soil rich in clay, a material that is relatively impermeable to water, and then adding an additional layer of condensed clay to the excavated surface. .

A layer of gravel is often placed on top of the condensed clay. Administrative regulations sometimes require an additional artificial top layer to be placed on top of the compacted clay and gravel. Waste that is buried in a landfill, if originally liquid, is usually coagulated by adding fillers such as kiln dust, fly ash or lime (all of which have hydrating properties).

The solidified waste is then allowed to fall to the bottom of the landfill and covered with a material that helps seal the waste from the elements, forming a waste "chamber." This process is repeated daily, and the landfill is gradually filled with waste chambers covered with covers, each covered with a clay cover as it fills. When the landfill is completely full,
A final cover (which can be a 2 foot thick layer of clay) is placed on top. Grass can be planted on top to reduce erosion.

The success of clay and artificial overlays in preventing waste leaching from the landfill into the surrounding groundwater needs to be monitored. One way to do this is to provide a water sump at the bottom of the gravel layer. A pipe or tube can be used to connect this water reservoir to the surface;
This allows the properties of the liquid in the sump to be periodically checked. Another method is to drill water testing wells at several locations around the landfill.

Landfills or pits may be located at or near the borders of plants producing hazardous waste, but many treatment areas are located in remote locations and waste must be transported from the generation site to the treatment site. I have to do it. The risk of exposure to waste during transport requires that full precautions be taken. For example, containers for transporting waste need to be strong enough to prevent leakage. When transporting waste containers on public roads, they must be able to withstand the pressures caused by collisions with trucks and other vehicles.

As public awareness of hazardous waste increases, efforts to clean up unsatisfactory disposal sites are initiated. Superfund in the United States
The Act is an example of such a plan. Already in the United States, hundreds of hazardous waste sites have been identified as currently unsafe for storing waste. Many of these sites will be cleaned up by transferring the waste to new treatment sites that meet current regulations. Therefore, Superphant or other similar cleanup programs involve two potentially difficult aspects of handling hazardous waste: transportation and treatment. Of course, industrial sources continually produce hazardous wastes on a daily basis, much of which must be transported to treatment plants.

At the same time, increased public and scientific concern about hazardous waste has led to significant delays in opening new landfills. When a new disposal site is proposed,
Difficult political and technical problems arise. these are,
It is submitted in an adjustment process that often lasts many years. Therefore, when the demand for environmentally sound treatment equipment is high, the supply of such equipment is severely limited. Measures that allow the reuse of existing waste sites would be highly advantageous.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention improves hazardous waste technology in such a way that it can solve some of the problems of both transportation and disposal and give the public greater confidence in the safety of its operation. It is.

A portable container for hazardous waste according to the present invention includes a plurality of members defining a closed volume, each member being substantially liquid-impermeable and corrosion-resistant, and filled with waste. characterized by a collective structural strength sufficient to withstand lifting, transportation and stacking in a landfill. The above-mentioned "members" include walls, necks, bottoms, etc. The containers described above can be used both for storing and transporting waste.

For example, in cleaning up an existing waste site, if the waste is present in a rusty container, the waste can be transferred from the rusty container to a container according to the invention. And in the unlikely event that the waste contaminates the soil and thereby potentially or actually contaminates the ground water, the contaminated soil can be excavated and placed into the container according to the invention. The disposal site is other than that (
If the problems (other than those related to storage containers) are satisfied, the waste can be placed in a container according to the invention and a suitable treatment facility licensed and constructed, or new technology enabled to recycle or destroy the hazardous material. It can be safely stored in place until it is developed.

In the unlikely event that the disposal site is unsatisfactory due to lack of a suitable clay layer or for other reasons, the waste can be placed in containers according to the invention and transported by truck to a satisfactory disposal site. At that location the containers are simply deposited at the location. strength of the container,
Due to its liquid impermeability and corrosion resistance, the container satisfies regulatory requirements both with respect to transport and placement. The container itself meets the requirements of an artificial top layer in a landfill. Containers according to the invention should be useful in above-ground and underground storage facilities in landfills.

A portable container for hazardous waste in one particular embodiment of the invention has a rectangular bottom, four walls and a lid. The bottom has a horizontal lower surface and an upper surface that slopes downward from one end to the other. The four walls are integrally connected to each other and to the bottom.

Each wall has a top and a bottom, the top being at right angles to the bottom. The lower portion slopes outward from the bottom toward the location where it joins the upper portion. The lid fits within the opening defined by the four walls to form a sealable container. This embodiment of the invention also has a plurality of hollow straight tubes that can be placed on the top surface of the bottom. The tubes extend from the highest end to the lowest end at the bottom, and each tube has a plurality of holes in its surface. The lower ends of these tubes are connected to a water reservoir (liquid reservoir), and the container includes means for detecting moisture ('tL body) in the water reservoir.

Compared to previously used hazardous waste technology, the present invention has significant advantages in terms of simplicity, adaptability to a wide variety of applications, and ability to increase public confidence in the handling of hazardous waste.

(Example) The portable container for hazardous waste according to the present invention can have various forms. One preferred form has a rectangular neck and bottom with four walls connecting them. The size of such containers depends on the density of the waste and the weight and width regulations applicable to the transport. For example, if waste is transported by truck and the density of contaminated soil is 2500 bonds per cubic yard (approximately 0.76461113),
If the container weighs approximately 15 to 20 cubic yards (approx.
It is appropriate to have a volume of approximately 11.469 to 15.292 m3. Reduce the length of the container to 13 feet (approximately 3.962
m), the width is 8 feet (approximately 2.438 m), and the height is 4 feet (approximately 1.219+++), which falls within the above range.

FIG. 1 shows a cross section of a portable container for hazardous waste according to the present invention, viewed from the side. The container IO includes a bottom 12, a wall 14, and a lid I6. The bottom 12 and the wall I4 form an integral unit. The lid 16 is sized to allow it to slide into the opening formed by the wall 14 to form a sealed unit. As shown in FIG. 1, the bottom 12 preferably has a horizontal lower surface 18 of uniform thickness and an upper surface 20 having one end higher than the other. The purpose of sloping the top surface 20 of the bottom 12 in this way is to cause the liquid entering the container 10 to flow toward the lowest end (of the top surface 20 of the bottom) by gravity. Collecting the liquid in this manner aids in detecting the liquid and detecting liquid leaks in the container.

One useful method of preventing the leakage of waste from a container into the surrounding ground water is to monitor the leakage of moisture into the container. According to administrative regulations, waste in containers is always solidified before burial, so there should be no moisture in the containers.

Therefore, when waste leaks from a container, a liquid must first enter (or form within) the container, which acts as a carrier for the leak. Monitoring the presence of moisture in the lowest part of the container is therefore a useful way to prevent contamination of surrounding ground water in the event that the container leaks.

Fruitful S mountain no H+Suru 4S/Ha! 1f ■ Loss I Guo nh
+ A group of hollow tubes 22 on the upper surface 20 of the bottom part 12
can be placed. Preferably, the tube 22 extends linearly from the highest end to the lowest end of the bottom 12 in the height direction. Third
The figure shows a state in which a plurality of the tubes 22 are provided in parallel with each other. Each tube 22 includes a plurality of holes 24. The liquid in the container thus flows towards the bottom, passes through the hole 24, and flows down the tube 22 toward the plate. The hole 24 needs to be large enough not to be clogged with solid particles in the soil. As shown in FIG. 2, tube 22 preferably has a semi-circular cross-section.

The tube 22 has a water reservoir portion 26 (shown in FIGS. 1 and 3).
(liquid reservoir). The presence of moisture in the water reservoir 26 is monitored. This monitoring can be done in several ways. One particularly preferred method when a large number of containers are deposited in a landfill is to provide an electrical moisture sensing probe 27 (detection means) in the sump 26. Each container probe at the landfill can be electrically connected to a warning lamp panel in the central control room. If a leak occurs in one of the containers and moisture enters, the moisture will be collected in the reservoir 26 of the container and a corresponding warning lamp will be illuminated. This device allows the operator to know which container has leaked, allowing him to focus on repairing the container. This is a major advantage when hundreds of thousands of containers are stacked sideways and vertically in a landfill. Without knowing the potential leak source, the operator may have to lift and remove all containers to find the problematic container. As a backup device, the probe can be withdrawn from each container and a tube (not shown) can be inserted into the water reservoir of each container. Thereby, the moisture present in the water reservoir can be sucked out to the surface through the tube. Compared to conventionally used equipment,
This leak detection device has substantial advantages.

Returning to FIG. 1, the channel wall 114 in the illustrated container includes an upper portion 28 and a lower portion 30. The upper portion 28 is perpendicular to the lower surface 18 of the bottom portion 12 . Therefore, if the bottom part 12 is rectangular, four wall parts I4 will be provided. Accordingly,” Part 2, 28
Four tJs are provided, and their upper portions define rectangular upper openings. Each of the four lower portions 30 slopes outward from the location where it mates with the bottom portion 12 toward the location where it mates with the upper portion 30 . Therefore, the horizontal cross-sectional shape of the container is rectangular in both the upper part 28 and the lower part 30. In this example, the upper 2
The horizontal cross-sectional area at the height of 8 is larger than that at the height of the lower part 30.

The purpose of the lower portion 30 and upper portion 28 of the wall 14 is to allow the container to be adapted to different volumes of waste. When the volume 10 is completely filled with waste, the lid 16 may not slide into the opening defined by the top 28 until it comes into contact with the top of the top 28. Furthermore, if the density of the waste is relatively large and the container cannot be completely filled to the top due to public road load restrictions, etc., the lid 16 may slide down until it comes into contact with the waste, as shown by the dotted line in FIG. can.

Thus, whether the container is completely filled or not, the lid 16 rests on the waste, thereby providing additional support to the lid.

After insertion of the closure 16, the container 10 can be sealed in a variety of ways depending on the material from which it is made and other factors. If the container 10 is constructed of a resin polymer such as polyethylene, it can be sealed by heating the container and melting the lid 16 into the top 128. Other useful resin polymers are polybutylene and polybutadiene. Different container materials are required depending on the characteristics of the waste to be enclosed. Wall part 14
Providing the lower part 30 slanted is suitable for transporting empty containers. Several lids are stacked one on top of the other on the bed of the truck, and each of the other halves of the container 10 (bottom 12 and wall 14 formed as an integral unit) accommodates the lid directly below it. can be layered on top.

The filled containers are lifted by a crane. To assist in this, the container wall 14 is preferably provided with gripping means, such as the circular recess 32 shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. These four parts assist the cinder-like prongs or hooks used by cranes to securely grip the container.

Since the upper surface 20 of the bottom portion 12 is inclined, the thickness at one end (the right end in FIG. 1) of the bottom portion is greater than the thickness at the other end (the left end in FIG. 1). One method of minimizing the weight increase caused by this thickness difference is shown in FIG. Instead of making the bottom continuous, a plurality of tapered ribs 34 are provided on the lower surface of the bottom. The lower surfaces of these ribs 34 are horizontal. At the end of the top surface 20 of the bottom (indicated by dotted lines in FIG. 4) at its highest height, the ribs are given a predetermined height. The height of the rib 34 gradually decreases toward the other end and reaches zero at the other end. Like this rib 3
4, the total weight of the container 10 does not necessarily increase by sloping the top surface of the bottom.

Also, creating a gap between the ribs prevents roll-off (
This is to suitably transport containers using a roll-off type truck. The roll-off trunk has longitudinal rails above its bed and is equipped with a hydraulic system with cables for lifting containers onto the bed.

The container is usually equipped with some kind of rail at its bottom that mates with the rail of the bottom, so that lateral movement of the container is prevented. The suitably spaced ribs on the container according to the invention are adapted to the rails of a roll-off truck so that the container can be transported by said truck.

The container according to the present invention can be used for hazardous waste by handling as follows. Wastes in the process stream produced by leaky containers, holes or plants are placed in containers according to the invention. Place the lid in place and seal. The sealed container is placed on a truck and transported to a storage location (if the waste is simply transferred from an unsatisfactory container, a new container according to the invention is placed in the same location as the original container). The container is then removed from the truck and placed at an above-ground or underground location. For the most efficient use of space, place multiple containers side by side and stack them one above the other.

If the containers include moisture sensing means (detection means), the sensing means in each container shall be connected to a warning lamp located in a control center separate from the container to assist in detecting the location of a leak in the event it occurs. do.

What has been described above is one embodiment of the invention, and those skilled in the art will recognize that various modifications may be made while maintaining the scope and spirit of the invention. For example, instead of having the wall of the container have two sections (top and bottom) as described above, the wall may be one section and the entire wall may be perpendicular to the bottom or the entire wall may be oriented outwardly. It can be tilted.

Similarly, the number of wall portions may be other than four.

Possible variations of the pond will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a portable container for hazardous waste according to the present invention, viewed from the side; FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the tube shown in FIGS. 1 and 3; and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the tube according to the present invention. 1' Partially cutaway perspective view of such a container, No. 4
The figure is a perspective view from below of a container according to the invention. 10... Container, 12... Bottom, 14... Wall, I
6... Lid body, 20... Top surface, 22... Tube,
24... Hole, 26... Liquid reservoir, 27... Detection means, 28... Upper part, 30... Lower part. Patent Applicant James Bruce Morrison, Jr.

Claims (16)

[Claims] (1) an assembly comprising a plurality of members defining a closed volume, each member being substantially liquid-impermeable and corrosion-resistant, and sufficient to withstand lifting, transportation, and stacking in a landfill when filled with waste; A portable container for hazardous waste, which is characterized by having structural strength. (2) The container according to claim 1, which has a liquid reservoir for collecting the liquid present inside the container. (3) The container according to claim 2, which has a liquid detection means in the liquid reservoir. (4) Claim 1 composed of resin polymer
Containers listed in section. (5) a bottom, a plurality of walls integrally connected to each other and to the bottom, and a lid having a shape adapted to the walls to form a sealable container, said bottom, walls and lid; Transportable material for hazardous waste, characterized in that the body is liquid-impermeable and corrosion-resistant, and has a collective structural strength sufficient to withstand lifting, transportation and stacking in a landfill when filled with waste. container. (6) The container according to claim 5, wherein the bottom and the lid are rectangular, and four walls are provided. (7) The container according to claim 5, wherein the horizontal cross-sectional area of the container wall at the connection position with the lid is larger than the horizontal cross-sectional area of the container wall at the connection position with the bottom. 8. A container according to claim 7, wherein each wall has an upper part and a lower part, the upper part being at right angles to the bottom and the lid, and the lower part sloping outwardly as it extends upwardly from the bottom. . (9) The container according to claim 5, which has gripping means for lifting on the outside thereof. (10) The container according to claim 5, wherein the bottom, wall, and lid are made of a resin polymer. (11) The container according to claim 10, wherein the resin polymer is polyethylene. (12) The container according to claim 5, wherein the upper surface of the bottom is inclined so that the liquid dropped onto the upper surface of the bottom flows toward one end of the bottom due to gravity. (13) The container according to claim 12, which has a liquid reservoir at the bottom end on the side where the liquid flows due to gravity. (14) A plurality of hollow linear tubes located on the upper surface of the bottom, the tubes extending from the highest end to the lowest end in the height direction at the bottom, each tube having a plurality of holes on its surface and a liquid reservoir. A container according to claim 13, which is connected. (15) The container according to claim 13, comprising a liquid detection means in the liquid reservoir. (16) A bottom portion whose upper surface slopes downward from one end to the other, integrally connected to each other and to the bottom portion and each having an upper portion and a lower portion, the upper portion being at right angles to the bottom portion and having a rectangular shape; four walls sloping outwardly as they extend upwardly from the base, the lower portion defining an upper opening; a lid fitting the upper opening to form a sealable container; located at the lowest height of the base; A liquid reservoir, a plurality of hollow linear tubes located on the upper surface of the bottom, extending from the highest end to the lowest end in the height direction of the bottom, each having a plurality of holes on its surface, and connected to the liquid reservoir. Portable container for hazardous waste with liquid detection means in the reservoir.